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Modern, Edited by R. H. Wadleigh
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Title: Head-Gear, Antique and Modern
Editor: R. H. Wadleigh
Release Date: May 11, 2021 [eBook #65316]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
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WADLEIGH’S
Fashionable Millinery and Cap Rooms,
474 Washington Street,
BOSTON, MASS.
CONSTANTLY ON HAND,
Untrimmed Chip and Straw Hats and Bonnets,
French, English, and American.
THE CORRECT STYLE
IN
Trimmed Dress Bonnets, Round Hats, Travelling
and Riding Hats.
DAILY RECEIVING THE VERY LATEST NOVELTIES.
FEATHERS, FLOWERS, RIBBONS,
VELVETS, AND SILKS,
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In all the Extreme and Exclusive Shades and Tints,
A SPECIALTY.
Misses’ and Children’s Hats, Trimmed and Untrimmed.
HEAD-GEAR,
ANTIQUE AND MODERN.
Illustrated.
COMPILED AND EDITED
BY
R. H. WADLEIGH.
BOSTON:
COLEMAN & MAXWELL, Stationers and Printers,
58 and 60 Federal Street.
1879.
Copyright, 1879.
R. H. WADLEIGH.
My recent publication on Head-Gear, Antique and Modern, will be delivered to all our customers. Should there be
any who do not receive a copy, they will do me a favor by making application at the store where they will be supplied. I
take great pleasure in presenting the only work exclusively devoted to this subject ever published, trusting a perusal of
its pages will be at least interesting, if not instructive. I have used every effort to make it a correct description of styles,
beginning with Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs (dating back nearly six thousand years) and ending with modern Paris,
giving some twenty pages of beautifully executed illustrations, and thirty pages of descriptive essays and quotations from
ancient and modern writers.
We solicit continuance of your patronage this coming season, and feel confident that with a rich and varied
assortment of millinery goods and perfect artists we shall be able to sustain our motto “CORRECT STYLES.”
Respectfully yours,
R. H. Wadleigh.
fashionable millinery and cap rooms,
474 washington street boston.
march 24th, 1879.
A special importation of novelties in HEAD-DRESS ADORNMENTS. At prices to suit the times.
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INTRODUCTION.
The object of this work is to give an idea of the fashions in head-gear of ancient and modern times, which to most
people are very interesting. To obtain anything like a correct description thereof, it is necessary to consult not only
history, but also laws, poems, and biographies. For this, few have opportunity or inclination; and this work is an earnest
endeavor to supply in a condensed form what I have found to be a desideratum; and I believe it contains a correct
description of styles not to be found in any other work, and no statement is made without the most patient study and
research.
As civilization and mental improvement advance in any country, a laudable curiosity is awakened to inquire into, and
become acquainted with, the appearances, manners, and opinions of other nations and times. To gratify this curiosity,
and to assist in this effort to be informed respecting the individual manners and customs, the external appearance, and
the general fashions of different peoples and periods, this work is issued, presenting to the eye a series of judiciously
selected and well executed representations of the original and ancient head-dress, and quotations and facts gleaned
from ancient history to verify their correctness.
Trusting this work will interest, if not benefit, its readers,
I remain, respectfully,
R. H. WADLEIGH.
Millinery Rooms, 474 Washington St.
Boston, March 1, 1879.
Catching all the oddities, the whimsies, the absurdities, and the littlenesses of conscious greatness by the way.
Backward, turn backward,
O time, in your flight!
Onward, still onward,
Seeking knowledge and light.
Perhaps the most ancient head-dress that we find mentioned in history is the tiara. Strabo informs us that it was in the
form of a tower.
It is often seen carved upon ancient medals, and Servius calls it a Phrygian cap. The kings and heroes of Homer and
Virgil wore this head-dress:—
This royal robe and this tiara wore
Old Priam.
Woman is defined by an ancient writer to be an “animal that delights in finery”; and it is to be feared the annals of
dress in every land, the most savage as well as the most civilized, will but prove the truth of the assertion.
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1
Funeral Boat. Tomb of the Kings.—Thebes.
A caul is a very ancient head-dress; it is mentioned in the Bible, and by many old writers; it was usually made of net-
work, of gold or silk, and enclosed all the hair. Some were set with jewels, and were very heavy and of great value. In
the time of Virgil cauls were much worn:—
Her head with ringlets of her hair is crowned,
And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound,
The net that held them and the wreath that crowned.
Homer.
O’er her fair face a snowy veil she threw,
And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew.
2
Females. Musicians from Theban Tombs. In the reign of Menes, 3893 years B.C.
[10]
[11]
It appears that females were the chief musicians, and these were probably ladies of rank, for they are robed in that
delicate texture which was then called “Woven Air.”
The figures on the opposite page give an illustration of Chinese women in full dress. Fig. 3 represents a married lady
with her hair tied on top of the head. A quantity of false hair was used to make a tuft as large as possible, filled with
gold or silver pins, the ends of which were highly ornamented with jewels. Artificial flowers were often used to
ornament the head. But the favorite coiffure—the object of a Chinese lady’s greatest admiration—was an artificial bird,
formed of gold or silver, intended to represent Fong-Whang, a fabulous bird of which the ancients relate many
marvellous tales. It was worn in such a manner that the wings stretched over the front of the head; the spreading tail
made a kind of plume on the top, and the body was placed over the forehead, while the neck and beak hung down; and
the former, being fastened to the body with an invisible hinge, vibrated with the least motion.
3 4
The recorded history of China begins 2697 years before Christ.
The above figures, Nos. 3 and 4, represent the head-dress and costumes of a later date.
The researches of scholars and critics which have been so generously and successfully lavished, for the last two
centuries, upon the ruins of Egypt, are perfectly marvellous, and only increase our desire to be more acquainted with its
customs, of which we can find but little in the way of head-dress to ornament these pages. Figure 7, on the opposite
page, represents King Rameses First and his queen, who reigned through the most illustrious period of Egyptian history,
in the nineteenth dynasty, about 1411 B.C.
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[13]
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[15]
5 6
Arabs in Syria and Palestine.
7
King Rameses and his Queen, B.C. 1411.
In the early history of Rome, 550 years B.C., in the reign of Servius Tullius, there seems to have been nothing
whatever of head-dress.
Thus we read in the “Æneid”:—
Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind;
Loose was her hair and wanton’d in the wind.
Ribbons or fillets were a very general head-dress.
Thus Virgil says:—
In perfect view their hair with fillets tied.
Her beauteous breast she beat and rent her flowing hair.
Strabo says, that in Athens it consisted of a wreath of myrtle leaves and roses around the head, forming a corobulus.
The hair over the forehead of Apollo Belvidere is an example of a corobulus. And the hair was twined or spun
around a spindle, in the shape of a cone, and one or more of these projected from the crown of the head, with a golden
grasshopper for ornament, as seen in Fig. 10.
Four hundred and eighty years B.C., hats were not worn as a rule, and dress was in simple style. It was considered
improper for women to be seen on the street, and their appearance there occurred only on exceptional occasions.
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8 9 10 11 12
Athens.
On journeys, women wore a light, broad-brimmed petasos, which Figs. 8 and 11 represent, as a protection from the
sun. At a late period the head-dress of Athenian ladies, at home and for the street, consisted, in addition to the
customary veil, chiefly of different contrivances for holding together their plentiful hair.
At an early period, Greek women wore longer or shorter veils, which covered the face up to the eyes, and, falling
over the neck and back in heavy folds, covered the whole upper part of the body.
We often find instances of the exquisite taste of these head-dresses in statuary and gems of ancient origin; at the same
time it must be confessed that most modern fashions, even the ugly ones, have their models, if not in Greek, at least in
Roman antiquity.
A ribbon used to be worn around the head, tied in front with an elaborate knot. The net—after it the ’kerchief—was
developed from the simple ribbon, in the same manner as straps on the feet gradually became boots.
The head-dress of the women, as well as their costumes, were different at different periods, as figures on preceding
page illustrate.
13 14 15 16
Greece.
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Homer frequently mentions the veil as a part of the attire of the Grecian and Trojan ladies.
Of Helen, he says:—
O’er her fair face a snowy veil she threw,
And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew.
The ancient head-dress of the Irish appears to be but little known till the twelfth century, when it is said to have been
much the same as that worn by the Southern Britons.
17 18
England, A.D. 450.
In ancient Britain, from the earliest time to the arrival of the Saxons, A.D. 450, we can find no mention made of
ladies’ head-dress, and but little is mentioned until about 1066, and even at this date not any style existed, although
Anglo-Saxon females of all ranks wore a veil, or long piece of linen or silk wrapped around the head and neck. This
part of their dress was exceedingly unbecoming, perhaps partly owing to the want of skill in the artists, and this head-
dress was seldom worn except when they went from home (see figures on preceding page), as the hair itself was
cherished and ornamented with as much attention as in modern times.
In an Anglo-Saxon poem the heroine is called, “The maid of the Creator with twisted locks.”
About this time the fashions began to travel northward from Italy, through Paris to London, and caps, hats, and
bonnets of various and fantastic shapes were introduced.
(See figures opposite.)
As Shakspeare said:—
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy, apish nation
Limps after, in base imitation.
Richard II., Act II., Scene 1.
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19 20
England, A.D. 1300.
In England, artificial flowers were unknown till the reign of Edward III., A.D. 1041.
Artificial flowers, those beautiful imitations of the “stars of the earth,” are brought to such perfection that they almost
rival the blossoms they are intended to imitate.
In France, during the reign of Charles VIII., in 1483, it is recorded that head-dresses were lowered considerably;
but in the portrait of Mary of Burgundy, we find that she still wore the favorite towering cap that had been fashionable
for two hundred years before her time, with the veil hanging to the ground and a square piece lying upon the neck and
shoulders.
It is a hard thing to say, but the women might have carried the Gothic building, this steeple head-dress, much higher
had it not been for a famous monk, Thomas Conects by name, who attacked it with great zeal and resolution.
This holy man travelled around to preach down this monstrous style, and succeeded so well, that, as the magicians
sacrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an Apostle, so many of the women threw down their head-
dresses in the middle of his sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of the pulpit. He was so renowned, as well
for the sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, that he would often have twenty thousand people at a time to listen
to him. The men placed themselves on one side of the pulpit and the women on the other, and the latter appeared (to
use the similitude of an ingenious writer) like a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds, but, like snails in
a fright, drew their horns in, to shoot them out again as soon as the danger was gone.
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21 1000, A.D. 22 1000, A.D. 23 1200, A.D.
France.
24 1200. 25
French.
Whenever they wore them in public, they were pelted down by the rabble with stones; but, nevertheless, they
mounted them again after a short time. The customs of the Norman peasants in many respects differ from those of
Britain. The head-dress called Burgonin is the most remarkable and conspicuous part of their attire.
The weaving of gold and silver threads into ribbon and cloth, which is now in use, is no new idea; it was ascribed by
Pliny to King Attalus, about sixteen hundred years ago.
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26 27 28
1300
29 30 31
French, A.D. 1400.
“Here, on a fair one’s head-dress, sparkling sticks,
Swinging on silver springs, a coach and six;
There, on a sprig or slop’d pourpon, you see
A chariot, sulky, chaise, or vis-a-vis.”
In the same poem we read:—
“Nelly! where is the creature fled?
Put my post-chaise upon my head.”
In Germany the styles seem to have differed but little from those of France, as, no doubt, France at that date
furnished the styles for the world, as she does to-day.
Fig. 32 was copied from the “Nuremberg Chronicle” of A.D. 1493.
Fashion wears out more than women do.
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32 33 34
Germany, A.D. 1450.
35 36 37
15th Century.
As we advance in these pages one would suppose we ought to be exhibiting styles more quiet; but, on the contrary,
when we look at Figures 38 and 39, which have been selected from miniatures in MSS., it would seem that
improvement was made in the wrong direction.
The caps shown on the opposite page, in Figs. 40, 41, and 42, were worn in the reign of William and Mary in 1688,
and were quite becoming.
In 1750 there was a change for the worse, and as we advance to Figs. 43, 44, and 45, we find them ridiculous.
In 1789, as in Figs. 46 and 47, there is nothing added to their beauty.
Here fashion, motley goddess, changing still,
Finds ready subjects to obey her will,
Who laugh at nature and her simple rules.
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38 39
40 41 42
43 44
45
46 47
Figures 48 and 49, illustrating the Restoration of A.D. 1830, indicate a reaction against the Voltairean philosophy
and French Revolution, and a return to chivalry and devotion.
At this period they were heart-shape in front, in remembrance of Mary Stuart, imitating an open carriage, hiding the
charms of the fair face underneath from the passer-by.
In 1850 a modification is observable, as shown in Fig. 50.
As we arrive at the fashions of 1870 (Fig. 51), we begin to feel more at home. Of course each generation thinks its
own styles are just right, but in centuries to come modistes, no doubt, will look back upon our present styles as we do
on the fashions of centuries past.
Such is life.
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48 49
Head-dress during the Restoration in A.D. 1830.
50
A.D. 1850.
51
A.D. 1870.
LADIES’ DRESS CAPS.
As yet no mention has been made of caps, but a great many of the illustrations of simple head-covering resemble
caps more than hats or bonnets, although not so designated. Figs. 52, 53, and 54 are dress caps worn by the French in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Fig. 55 shows a new style of dress cap called the “Thyra,” composed of
Bretonne lace, ribbon, and flowers; the crown being of dotted lace.
Fig. 56 is a muslin breakfast cap called the “Langtry,” made of Valenciennes lace, falling over the front, finished with
an Alsatian bow, and the crown of Swiss muslin.
Fig. 57 is a new and novel idea called the “Turban,” composed entirely of a large silk handkerchief. This is much
worn for a dinner or evening toilet. The last three styles are taken from the originals at
WADLEIGH’S
Fashionable Millinery and Cap Rooms,
BOSTON.
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52 53
1750. French.
54
1793.
55
Thyra.
56
Langtry.
57
A.D. 1879.
On the opposite page (Fig. 58) is an illustration of the very latest Paris bonnet by Madame Magnièr.
The foundation is heavy corded silk of cream-color, with an immense wreath of Mignonette covering the front of the
crown and drooping gracefully to the left, with face-trimming of a simple knot of Bretonne lace.
Fig. 59, designed and executed at Wadleigh’s, is a white French chip. The face of the bonnet has alternate pipings of
light-blue and cardinal satin, with a shirring of the latter. The outside is composed of a knot and twist of Sultan silk
mingled with Bretonne lace, a fine wreath of forget-me-nots, and drooping cardinal buds, with Bretonne lace ties. Figs.
60 and 61 are also copies of the latest spring designs.
Fashion now assumes a most important place in the domestic economy of nations.
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